Starfish from Deep-Sea Hawaii- What Lives Below A Tropical Paradise!

Quick bookeeping/techie feature... Note that you can now share the Echinoblog to Facebook or Tweet it using the buttons at the bottom!!!

So, this week...a special TREAT! A recent visit by a colleague from the Hawai'i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa has resulted in my being able to show all of my loyal Echinoblog fans some EXCLUSIVE images of the deep-sea fauna in the Hawaiian Islands!!

Hawai'i has some AWESOME shallow-water echinoderms. I've blogged about many of these species.

This includes such cool critters as Colobocentrotus-the shingle urchin and some uncommon/rarely seen starfish, such as Coscinasterias, Valvaster, and Astropecten. As well as some neat artistic renditions...

Most people don't realize that HURL one of the most active deep-sea laboratories in the United States with ongoing research in marine biology, oceanography, geology, and even anthropology (discovering World War II submarines and shipwrecks for instance!)

They operate not one but TWO manned submersibles in American waters-the Pisces IV and the Pisces V. Plus a remotely operated vehicle.

Both subs are deployed off the mother ship, the Ka‘imikai-o-Kanaloa (often abbreviated KoK) which is Hawaiian for "Heavenly Searcher of the Sea" Here is the Pisces V being deployed from the aft deck of the KoK.

...and thanks to Craig Young, I've actually been down in the Pisces V (in 2001) and found it to be one of the coolest things I've ever done!

I've had a fairly LONG association with not only the Hawaiian Undersea Research Lab, but also the Invertebrate Zoology department at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, where I helped identify and sort the echinoderms in the collection.

I was ultimately able to learn and help to identify the deep-sea starfish/sea star fauna in and around the Hawaiian Islands.

Its interesting that there's actually a much HIGHER diversity of deep-sea starfish around Hawai'i then shallow-water. But sadly, much of it is very poorly known. We continue to discover new things about the invertebrate fauna around the Hawaiian Islands on a regular basis!

Thanks to HURL..I am now able to share the diversity of (at least some of) this fauna with you!

What follows are images taken by the Hawaiian Undersea Research Laboratory of the animals in their habitat. (sorry for the bars at the top-these designate the species, dive and locality...)

Bear in mind...there are NO common names. Why? Because almost NO one other then scientists and possibly the occasional deep-sea fisherman, who gets one caught in a net gets to see these!

1. Anseropoda insignis. A weird deep-sea species found throughout the Indo-Pacific, but ONLY in deep-water (This one from 200-300 m or so..) The body is FLATTENED and almost PAPER-THIN. And are easily damaged when collected by trawl nets...so you almost never see them alive like this....

These are decent sized, about 8 to 10 inches across.

2. Tremaster mirabilis. I blogged about this as a species, "about which, little is known.."

but here..we see it sitting practically FLUSH on the sea bottom.. About 4-6 inches in diameter.

3. Astropecten polyacanthus. I just thought it would be interesting to show that even shallow-water species can get quite deep. This one was from less then 100 m (I'll have to check exactly how deep). Here is a post I did about one found in shallow-water.

4. Pentaceraster cumingi. At one time, this species was more commonly encountered at SCUBA depth, but I have anecdotally heard that because of its large size lack of abundance, and slow movement, this species has been rendered "locally extinct" in some places because people take them. But still occur in fairly deep-water (50-130 m)...

These are big..almost a foot and a half across..as are most oreasterids.

5. Asterodiscides tuberculosus. This is a species that you can see at the deeper end of a SCUBA dive. There are two toenail-like plates at the end of each arm. We know almost nothing about it.

Decent sized animals..about 6 to 8 inches across.

4. Ctenophoraster hawaiiensis. This species was described by Walter K. Fisher in 1906. We know nothing about it. This species is about 7 to 9 inches across.

5. Tamaria triseriata. Another species that is really pretty..but whose biology is unknown.
About 5 to 6 inches across.

6. Calliderma spectabilis (which is a synonym of Calliderma emma). These are amazing to see on video. They get BIG..and are almost a foot and a half across (armtip to armtip)! Probably because of their size, these are collected quite frequently.

It is interesting to note that the genus Calliderma also occurs in the Cretaceous of Europe, which suggests that this may be one of those critters that has been around and unchanged for quite a long time...

7. Calliaster pedicellaris. This is a pretty handsome animal. Sharp, cone-shaped spines cover the edge and the surface. We know pretty much nothing about it other then that.

Good sized about 6-7 inches across.

8. Coronaster eclipes. Another BEAST of a starfish! These can be VERY big..almost a foot and a half across. Possibly a predator? Described by Walter K. Fisher in 1925 and until the submersibles began operation...rarely encountered since then...

9. Brisinga panopla What's a bunch of deep-sea pictures without a brisingid or three?
There are actually about four species of brisingid that are known in and around the Hawaiian Islands..

What are brisingids? Short answer: starfish/sea stars that are deep-sea filter feeder/predators. Go here to read more! plus, they have Cool names. (go see!)

These can get to be over a foot in diameter.
So, this is NOT all of the species...just the ones I thought were immediately interesting. There's a LOT more. How many more?? Go check out this checklist for the starfish I helped develop..
and here's the master list for all Hawaiian Invertebrates..

Hopefully...I'll get to show some other species at some point...

Interested in more Hawaiian Invertebrates??

Here's a GREAT book-"In Deeper Waters" by two of the primary scientists at HURL available at Amazon..
and here is John Hoover's excellent field guide to shallow water (with some overlapping into the deep-sea) invertebrates!

Winter Interlude pt. 2: Sea Stars!! Pentaceraster and others!

and so the weather continues in the DC area with a blizzard dropping record breaking snow on the Metro area.. So, I continue to thank Posa Skelton for his pics of tropical echinoderms from Fiji as a pleasant distraction until things get back to normal next week!

Pentaceraster regulus!
Linckia laevigata (with 4 arms!)
Choriaster granulatus

..and of course the crown of thorns! Acanthaster planci

...and here's an unidentified crinoid !!!

NEWSFLASH! Echinoderms are Important to The Carbon Cycle!!

So, in a forthcoming 2010 issue of Ecological Monographs, a forthcoming paper by Mario Lebrato and authors from the University of Southampton (click here to see citation), shows the impact of echinoderms on the global carbon budget!!

This promises to be a pretty big article and has already been picked up by a number of other popular news outlets, including Nature, Scientist Live, Science Daily, and a host of others...

What the frakkin fruk is a global carbon budget?? What does it matter?? Why should I care?? How are echinoderms involved, anyway???

Carbon, Carbon Cycles & etc...

Carbon is an important element to living organisms and all organic things on the planet. It cycles through living and unliving things, but it is used and reused in all organic systems.

If the "Force" from Star Wars was real, it would be carbon. It binds, us and ties all living things together. Where it gets built up or "sequestered" can be an important consideration for understanding these global cycles.

Carbon cycles through the atmosphere, into the oceans, through organisms, and so on... There are bigger, better websites, like this one, and of course, Wikipedia that more thoroughly outline the details of the carbon cycle. This is the broader idea which encompasses the whole notion of "carbon footprint" (= how much greenhouse gas created by an organization, event, or product),

(this helpful cartoon taken from the University of Edinburgh!)

A SUBSET of the global carbon cycle, of course, occurs in the Oceans. And we can see a diagram of how Carbon cycles through the marine realm...

(from Chemgapedia.de)

But let's take a CLOSE-UP look at a specific part of the Marine Carbon Cycle....about "Decomposition & Mineralisation".

....and so, it is here with "Decomposition & Mineralisation" where the Echinoderm story begins....

Echinoderms (& Other organisms) Enter the Fray!

Echinoderms are essentially MADE out of a mineral called calcium carbonate (CaCO3), also known as limestone, chalk and several other names. The crucial part of this mineral is the carbonate, which is made out of carbon and oxygen. Thus, echinoderm bodies act as kind of a "bank" for carbon on the deep-sea bottom!

It sequesters or stores carbon as part of the process of recycling it back into the water column and beyond! But up til' now, the contribution of carbon to this system was poorly understood.

When echinoderms die (i.e. decompose), their bodies fall apart (i.e., disarticulate) and those carbonate pieces fall into and are buried into the sea bottom and begin the "carbon cycling" process.
Lebrato et al. found that on a global scale, echinoderms have a PRODUCTION rate of approximately .861 Pg of CaCO3 (Pg=petagrams=1 billion metric tons!) per year!! So echinoderms produce just short of of 1 billion metric tons of calcium carbonate a year!!

The amount of echinoderm carbonate, which is right now, present on ocean bottoms aka the "Standing stock" is about 2.11 Pg of CaCO3 from organisms on the continental shelves, slopes and abyssal depths (1000+ m).

Apparently, more then 80% of global calcium carbonate production from echinoderms comes from animals that occur between 0 and 800 meters!! With the highest amounts attributed to the shelf and upper slope.

The greatest amount of standing stocks included ophiuroids (i.e., brittle stars)....
asteroids (aka starfish or sea stars)
and sea urchins...LeBrato et al. calculated "standing stocks" (i.e., the amount present today) from all around the world with different species making up the overall CaCO3 standing stocks in different parts of the world. Much variation exists.

Apparently, more then 80% of the substantial CaCO3 stocks were found in shallower then 800 m depths, especially from 0 to 500 m.

(from Wikipedia commons)

To refine the number above, echinoderms "sequester" or "capture" about 0.1 gigatons of carbon per year. This is apparently MORE then is "captured" by benthic foraminifera but less when compared against what is "captured" by pelagic (those that live in the open ocean) organisms, which capture about 0.4 to 1.8 gigatons.

By comparison, human activities produce about 5.5 gigatons of carbon every year.

Perhaps most critical is that the authors have found that there are regions around the world where the minerals used to form calcium carbonate are undersaturated (i.e., not as rich in the minerals needed to from calcium carbonate).

The authors attribute this directly to ocean acidification with the gravest concern of what should happen when this reaches the richest "standing stock" areas (i.e., where the bulk of echinoderms occur).

So, we are now JUST learning about the importance of carbon (in the form of calcium carbonate) that is "built up" on the sea bottoms (i.e., the benthos). What happens if this cycle is interrupted? Will the loss of carbon (in the form of calcium carbonate) sequestered on the sea bottoms result in ecological changes or worse??
Time will tell...but for now, we now how important it is to look at echinoderms on the deep-sea bottoms....

WHEN STARFISH ATTACK!!!! TIME LAPSE VIDEO DAY!!!!

First...Go HERE and see this AWESOME video of Antarctic Starfish [Odontaster validus (99% of the ones in the pic) and some Lysasterias (the big white one) thrown in for good measure] feeding on the dead carcass of a dead seal pup!! Ha! take that mammals! And there's some big Antarctic nemertine worms (probably Parborlasia corrugatus) thrown in for good measure!!

What??? You want MORE time lapse???! Here's some Canadian Atlantic species thrown in for good measure! Looks like primarily Leptasterias polaris (big 6 rayed beast) and Solaster endeca (8-12 armed one with stripes)And to the music of Benny Hill no less!



And yet, EVEN MORE Time Lapse video?? here ya'go! A tiny aquarium asterinid extending its stomach out onto the glass to feed!



Finally, here's some Patiria miniata gliding over the bottom of the Pacific!